Doeren's Early Thoughts Before Week 4 Matchup

Here is a partial transcript of Doeren's availability:

On the performance of the tight ends in the win over Wake Forest

• Doeren: "I'm very impressed with Cody Hardy as a blocker. I think he's been a huge asset to our offense. I love how he plays and he's super unselfish. The tight end room continues to be a glowing spot in our offense. Justin (Joly) had two touchdowns for us, and one big one, I thought was a really good route he ran on the third-down touchdown. Really, both of them."

On his early takeaways watching Duke's offense

• Doeren: "We played against some of these guys. The receivers (Que'Sean) Brown and (Sahmir) Hagans, are good football players who can run and make plays, get behind you. (Cooper Barkate) from Harvard, 18 yards plus per catch. (Quarterback Darian Mensah) is a really good passer. He sees the field. He's got a strong arm. Throws catchable balls. He's very accurate when he's running."

On what went wrong early and the team's inability to play a complete game so far

• Doeren: "It was bad football. That was the trend. We weren't playing aggressive. It's not about blitzing. It's about getting your feet in the ground, getting off, playing with technique, trusting what you see. You see a lot ... With the portal, new coaches, new coordinators, there's a lot of adjusting going. There are a lot of plays that are being run in the first half that are not on the film necessarily, so you're relying on the rules to take over.

• "I think as the season goes, that gets less and less with teams. They are who you see on film. Not that you can't get a new play every week. You can, but when you're playing against a staff you've never coached against, like in the Wake Forest game, there were a lot of things in there that they didn't show on film, to their credit. We just didn't do a great job reacting to those things."

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